Fallen
by Sparrow-of-Chaos
Summary: They had fallen for each other, and fallen in love. Now he reflects on how far they had fallen.


Author's Notes: This is an alternate universe story.

* * *

The streets were crowded with people, walking briskly past, but they remained faceless. The sun was shining, it's backdrop a perfect azure sky but he did not care. His shoes slightly scuff the pavement as he walked, knowing he was going to be late and she would yell. However, he was long past caring. 

The soft footsteps stop as he moved into the park sitting on a bench and thinking. Lately it seemed he was always thinking. The trees gave off a sweet pine scent and a few green leaves drift slowly by on a warm air current. Eyes normally laughing at everything stared straight ahead, looking at the children playing.

One of the last little tiffs had been about children, or rather her being sick of them. Always ruining her bookstore, touching everything, screaming, for a lone time she had gone on and on about how much she hated them. When he had muttered offhandedly that he did not mind them she had gone into one of her moods.

Yet, that what they had been, children playing with soft kisses and long valentines. Now he realized they had grown up and all that cushioning that they had believed was love was just a lie. All the promises and hopes simply not real.

A young couple walks by, hand in hand, him whispering a little sweet lie in her ear. Her eyes dancing and his smiling down at her, his arm around, her holding her close, saying all the little things lovers say. Garfield could hear their little whispers in his mind.

_"We're going to be married one day," _he would whisper, his breath tickling her ear. She would toss back her hair, laughing off what he said. Her hands would touch his arms should and chest, telling him he was being silly, but signalling him to carry on. It was what she wanted to hear. Garfiled had told her everyhting she had wanted, and he had meant all of it once upon a time. Everything she said had meant something too.

He would repeat himself, and she would blush and giggle her heart light and mind carefree at the thought of their future. It would seem so bright, so soft because they were in love and could make it through anything. It was just like the old Beatles song.

Garfield gave a little snort at the memory of the song. That group had been wrong, three had been divorced a few times and two were long dead. After his miniscule, music musing had ceased, he looked back at the slowly walking couple. A part of him wanted to laugh until he could not breathe, another cry until there was nothing wet left inside him.

"_I'll buy you the most beautiful house -but even then it would be nothing compared to you-"_ He would add in, deepening the scarlet hue on her face, _"and we'll live there and I'll carry you across the door, the most beautiful bride in the world, I promise."_

_"Stop," _she would giggle, knowing both him and her understood she did not mean it. Her eyes would beg him to continue, as the future had never seemed closer and sweeter. They awould be almost able to feel whatever promises they were making.

_"We'll have lots of children," _He would continue, a genuine smile, as he disillusioned himself with the fantasies, the glint in his eyes would be followed by a kiss placed on her neck,

_"I promise, my dear, I promise,"_

They had made their way down the walkway, him watching after the two, their conversation playing in his head. A cynical smirk plastered on his face.

"Maybe if they're lucky, one of them will be hit by a bus," He mumbled, looking the other way. He had made those promises and now they were both miserable. She never said it aloud as blunt as she was. It was something that both acknowledged and accepted, leaving it hanging in the air…poisoning their lives, draining them every way possible.

He hated her, everything little thing she did now irked him to no end. He couldn't stand her most of the time. Flaws glared at him.

That little smirk she wore when she was right, he had once loved it to the ends of the earth, but now, it was spiteful and rude, much like her. He voice, once a source of beauty to him was now like nails on a chalkboard, grating on the back of his mind. He knew he must be no different in her mind.

What she drank, what she ate, how she did her hair all bothered him. Lately he had begun to notice little nuances in her character that he had always overlooked.

Often she would comment on his jokes, say that they were silly and pointless when once she had admitted to them being funny. Little cruel comments meant to boost her own life long low self esteem. Things she said simply as part of her character.

It hurt him to think of how far apart they had fallen, at how they had done what everyone said they would. He stood as the sun sank into the harbour horizon. His brown shoes trailed though the grass and onto the wood of the pier.

Leaning against the rail he looked out onto the water, memories of the two of them playing though his mind like a scrapbook highlight reel. Flashes of colour and memory, all fast and still clear as day. All faintly pleasant feelin g lightly touching him,but falling farther and farther away, identical the smell of summer at the edges of fall evenings.

The times they had gone to a motel and watched rented movies, far away from the world. He could still smell the popcorn, sometimes burned and hear the whirr of the DVD and VCR. Her faint laugh at the funny parts, the way her eyes opened at the scary scenes, and her soflty trambling lip during the supense and sad bits of film still clung to memory, reminding him of hoaw he used to feel. Nostolgic and revolting at the same time, given every movie now he picked was stupid or infantile.

Skating at Christmas time, her falling on her rear for most of the time, and him always picking her up and helping her along, it was the perfect third date. The dancing to the music at an outdoor Christmas concert later that day had been one of the better moments of his Christmases. Hot cocoa and marshmallows that night, cuddling by a fire, they had never felt more safe. It had been wonderful to feel that happy and warm with her.

Later she had helped him with the deaths of his close family members, including his father, the loss of a friend that had been by his side for years. She had been the perfect friend to be by him while he struggled with his realization of just how fragile life was.

They had gone swimming in the lake during a rainy and windy storm that had robbed him of his swimming shorts. They had laughed while sitting under an umbrella on the deserted beach, watching the fish jump of out the water thinking the rain was insects. Everything had seemed so perfect and so happy then, but now he was that fish, to her as mindless and bored as anything ever was.

Everything he had said to her, he had always meant, at how pretty he though she was, at how talented and amazing she truly could be. He was not one to lie in any case, but now, it seemed like he was a different person, the years had taken away all of his love for her. Now he saw her differently.

A poem he had written years ago, for now reason was drawn up to his memory. As he waited the seagulls fly overhead his mouth formed the words of the first two stanzas.

"Time has worn me  
Thin and humble.  
I close my eyes  
and begin to mumble.

An emotion,  
Simple, without cause.  
This is hate,  
As cold as it ever was."

He gave a giggle, followed by a large bark of laughter at the foolishness of him, all the letters and poems he had written her, all the love tokens and gifts, everything seemed so foolish as he recited that little poem.

The crazy man laughing on the pier, which was who, he was at the moment. A few people looked but none questioned. One more lunatic in the world was nothing to a society built of sociopath tendencies.

His laughter faded away as a soft smirk rested upon his lips. The sun was setting, streaking the sky with purples and pinks, as it faded away into the abyss of the starry night sky.

More than anything he wished he still loved her, still could see their life going anywhere but the damp and grey dead end they were now facing. Together that had been though almost everything, and together they had grown apart. What once was love, or closest to it in this fragile and shallow life had turned into cold dislike, barely masked loathing.

Now he never wanted to return home, he could not care less if he never saw her again, if she took everything or if she died.

He had fallen for her, fallen in love with her, and she had done the same to him.

Now, he had fallen out of love with her.

"So," he said, looking out onto the gold streaked water, "this is hate."

* * *

Review, if you wish. Flame this, burn it, trash it. Love this, cry over it. Anon. reviews are accepted. 


End file.
